It’s that time when early morning or evening walks are filled with the white noise of unending croaking.

When tadpoles turn marshes and backyard ponds into a black mass of squiggling tails.

Frogs are so crazy cool…and there are so many around the Valley it’s not even funny.

They seem to be following us around, too.

A friend and I were gabbing about a neighbour’s pond full of tree frog tad poles and how cool it would be to check out those guys as they grow into adults.

Then, I got totally sucked in one evening reading on the Green Hour about pond dipping and thinking about all of the time we spend discovering the beach, yet not checking out the local freshwater scene.

To top it off, we were at Strong Start over at Ecole Puntledge Park on Thursday when Maureen – who runs the program (she’s amazing) – had a cool frog hat craft for us to take home.

As our daughter points out to me regularly, it is very important to have the proper head gear when pursuing a line of study (she’s a bit of a hat junkie).

So, we busted out the frog hat yesterday afternoon and made some plans for tadpole watching, pond dipping and some story reading about old Grandfather Frog in our now beloved series of Old Mother Westwind books by Thornton Burgess.

I have to quadruple thank Maureen for turning us on to this craft as the frog adventure is not the first time we have created a creature hat – lady bugs and bumble bees have also made their debut in this way.

They are easy, fun and it is not a sad day when they inevitably end up ripped or taken apart as was the case with the frog hat.

Here’s what you need:

- A strip of green construction paper that fits around your tiny person’s head.
- A small paper plate
- A thin strip of red construction paper
- Tape or glue
- A black marker

Directions:

1. Take the green strip of construction paper and fit it to your kiddo’s head. Tape the ends together. Glue isn’t a good choice here.

2. Cut the plate in half, draw a big black eye on each half and tape or glue them to the green construction paper.

3. Take the red construction paper and tape or glue it to make a tongue.

That’s it.

You can easily modify this for your bug of choice with pipe cleaners to make antennae and drawing designs on the construction paper.

We love them.

I imagine this craft will be a perennial one around here…and have a feeling there will be a whole lot of crazy bug hats floating around in the near future.

Programming Note:

Speaking of creativity, if you are looking for a cool, creative way to spend a Saturday in the Valley, be sure to drop by 4 Cats Arts Academy in Tin Town for their FREE open house from Noon to 3 p.m. tomorrow (May 31). Kiddos can try out splatter painting, spin art and free drawing classes.

SO AWESOME! Make sure to check them out. You’ll be totally hooked!